Hedge Funds Cost N.Y. Pension Plan $3.8 Billion, Report Says

The New York state comptroller’s decision to stick with hedge funds despite their poor returns has cost the Common Retirement Fund $3.8 billion in fees and underperformance, according to a critical report by the Department of Financial Services. The state comptroller, who invests $181 billion for two systems covering local employees, police and fire personnel, “has over relied on so-called ‘active’ …

It is worse than anyone thought on Wall Street

Daniel Pinto, CEO of JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank, just made a gloomy prediction for Wall Street. He said that the firm’s investment-banking revenues are forecast to be down 25% in the first quarter. Markets revenues are down 20% year-on-year, Pinto said, speaking at JPMorgan’s Investor Day conference. Importantly, Pinto noted, the start to 2015 is a tough comparison period for markets revenues because …

Alternative Visions – ‘Corporate Cash Piles $15.3 Trillion; US FED Keeps Free Money Flowing’ – 09.18.15

Jack Rasmus discusses the US Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates near zero and keep free money to banks and speculators flowing. Jack explains how free money from the FED keeps financial asset bubbles in stocks, junk bonds, forex, derivatives and the like going, and feeds ever growing profits from financial assets. Who were the forces and lobbyists behind the FED decision? What did they have to gain? How the FED decision will soon result in central banks in Japan and Europe expanding their own ‘QE’ programs further, intensifying global currency wars and slowing global trade. How global finance capital has become addicted to the free money from the FED and other central banks and is unable to wean themselves off of it. What it means for the coming next recession. In the second half of the show Jack reveals how cash on US, Europe and Japan corporate balance sheets still exceeds $7.3 trillion—after corporations have distributed to shareholders since 2009 more than $8 trillion in stock buybacks, dividend payouts, and private equity firm profit sharing distributions to partners. Jack explains how corporations in the three regions, north America, Europe and Japan, accumulated the $15.3 trillion—i.e. from free money, legislated tax cuts, and cuts to worker’s wages and benefits.

F. William Engdahl – The Worth of Gold Growing by the Day. “A Gold-backed Alternative to the Inflated Dollar System”

The worth of gold in the world is growing by the day. That might seem like a paradox but it isn’t. The worth of gold is not fixed on the Comex futures exchange, or the trade in London or Zurich. True, most of the gold-trading public takes its cue today from the CME’s COMEX gold futures price where it does …

Paul Craig Roberts – Supply and Demand in the Gold and Silver Futures Markets

This article establishes that the price of gold and silver in the futures markets in which cash is the predominant means of settlement is inconsistent with the conditions of supply and demand in the actual physical or current market where physical bullion is bought and sold as opposed to transactions in uncovered paper claims to bullion in the futures markets. …

The World Has Reached Peak Plutocracy – Soren Ambrose

Parents in despair because they can’t pay the fees at the privatised neighbourhood school… Families left without healthcare because the mining company that pollutes their river also dodges the taxes that could pay for their treatment… Women getting four hours of sleep a night as they try to balance caring for their families and homes with earning income… Whole communities …